His work on crowd psychology became important during the first
half of the twentieth century when it was used by media researchers
such as Hadley
Cantril and Herbert Blumer to describe the reactions
of subordinate groups to media.

He also contributed to controversy about the nature of matter
and energy. His book The Evolution of Matter was very
popular in France (having twelve editions), and though some of its
ideas — notably that all matter was inherently unstable and was
constantly and slowly transforming into luminiferous ether — were used by some
physicists of the time (including Henri Poincaré), his specific
formulations were not given much consideration. During 1896 he
reported observing a new kind of radiation, which he termed "black
light" (not the same as what modern people call black light today),
though it was later discovered not to exist.[1]

Contents

Life

Le Bon was born in Nogent-le-Rotrou, France (near Chartres), and died in Marnes-la-Coquette. He studied medicine and toured Europe, Asia, and North Africa during the 1860s to 1880s
while writing about archeology and anthropology, making some money from the design of scientific apparatus. His first great
success however was the publication of Les Lois psychologiques
de l'évolution des peuples (1894; The Psychology of
Peoples), the first work in which he used a popularizing style
that was to make his reputation secure. His best selling work,
La psychologie des foules (1895; English translation
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, 1896), was
published soon afterward.

During 1902, he began a series of weekly luncheons (les
déjeuners du mercredi) to which prominent people of many
professions were invited to discuss topical issues. The strength of
Le Bon's personal
networks is apparent from the guest list: participants included
Henri and
Raymond
Poincaré (cousins, physicist and President of France
respectively), Paul
Valéry and Henri
Bergson.

Influence

Le Bon was one of the great popularizers of theories of the unconscious
at a critical time during the formation of new theories of social action.

Wilfred
Trotter, a famous surgeon of University College
Hospital, London, wrote similarly in his famous book
Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, just before the
beginning of World War
I; he has been referred to as 'Le Bon's popularizer in
English.' Trotter also introduced Wilfred Bion, who worked for him at the
hospital, to Sigmund
Freud's work Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse (1921;
English translation Group Psychology and the Analysis of the
Ego, 1922), which was based explicitly on a critique of Le
Bon's work. Ultimately both Bion and Ernest Jones became interested in what
would later be called group psychology.
Both of these men became associated with Freud when he fled Austria
soon after the Anschluss. Both men were closely associated
with the Tavistock Institute as important
researchers of the topic of group dynamics.